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PHILADELPHIA 



Social Science Association 



Public Schools in their Relations 
to the Cofnmunity. 

READ AT A MEETING OF THE ASSOCIATION, APRIL 1ST, I880. 



—BY- 
JAMES S. WHITNEY. 



PUBLISHED BY THE 

PHILADELPHIA SOCIAL SCIENCE ASSOCIATION, 

720 LOCUST STREET, PHILADELPHIA. 



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THE FOLLOWING IS A LIST OF THE PAPERS READ BEFORE THE 
ASSOCIATION. 



1871. Compulsory Edticaiion. By Lorin Blodget. Out of print. 
Arbitration as a Remedy for Strikes. By Eckley B. Coxe. 

The Revised Statutes of Pennsylvania. By R. C. McMurtrie, Out of print. 
Local Taxation. By Thomas Cochran. 
Infant Mortality. ]^y Dr. J. S. Parry. 

1872. Statute Law and Co7ninon Law, and the Proposed Revision in Pennsylvania. 

By E. Spencer Miller. Out of print. 
Apprenticeship. By James S. Whitney. 
The Proposed Amendments to the Constitution of Pennsylvania. By Francis 

Jordan. 
Vaccination. By Dr. J. S. Parry. 
The Census. By Lorin Blodget. 

1873. The Tax System of Pennsylvania. By Cyrus Elder. 

The Work of the Constitutional Convention. By A. Sydney Biddle. 

What shall Philadelphia do with its Paupers ? By Dr. Isaac Ray. 

Proportional Representation. By S. Dana Horton. 

Statistics Relating to the Births, Deaths, Marriages, etc., in Philadelphia. By 
John Stockton-Hough, M.D. 

On the Value of Original Scientific Research. By Dr. Ruschenberger. 

On the Relative Infiuence of City and Country Life, on Morality, Health, Fe- 
cundity, Longevity and Mortality . By John Stockton-Hough, M.D. 

1874. The Public School System of Philadelphia. By James S. Whitney. 
The Utility of Government Geological Szirveys. By Prof. J. P. Lesley. 
77/1? Law of Partnership. By J. G. Rosengarteti. 

Methods of Valuation of Real Estate for Taxation. By Thomas Cochran. 
The Merits of Cremation. By Persifor Frazer, Jr. 
Outlines of Penology. By Joseph R. Chandler. 

1875. Brain Disease, aitd' Modern Living. By Dr. Isaac Ray. Out of print. 
Hygiene of the Eye, Considered with Reference to the Childre^t in our Schools. 

By Dr. F. D. Castle. 
The Relative Morals of City aiid Country. By Wm. S. Pierce. 
Silk Ctdture and Ho7)ie Industry. By Dr. Samuel Chamberlaine. 
Mind Reading, etc. By Persifor Frazer, Jr. 

Legal Status of Married Women in Pennsylvania. By N. D. Miller. 
The Revised Statutes of the United States. By Lorin Blodget. 

1876. Training of Nurses for the Sick. By John H. Packard, M.D. 

77/-? Advantages of the Co-operative Feature of Building Associations. By 

Edmund Wrigley. 
77/<? Operations of our Building Associations. By Joseph I. Doran. 
Wisdom in Charity. By Rev. Charles G. Ames. 

1877. Free Coinage and a Self- Adjusting Ratio. By Thomas Balch. 
Building Systems for Great Cities. By Lorin Blodget. 
Metric System. By Persifor Frazer, Jr. 

1878. Cause and Czire of Hard Ti?ues. By R. J. Wright. 
House-Drainage and Sewerage. By George E. Waring, Jr. 

A 2 lea for a State Board of Health. By Benjamin Lee, M. D. 
The Germ Theory of Disease, and its P7'esent Bearing upon Public and Per- 
sonal Hygiene. By Joseph G. Richardson, M.D, 

1879. Delusive Methods of Municipal Financiering. By Wm. F. Ford. 
Technical Educatio7t. By A. C. Rembaugh, M.D. 

The English Methods of Legislation Co77ipared with the A77ierican. By 

Simon Sterne. 
Thoughts 071 the Labor Questio7t. By Rev. D. O. Kellogg. 
On the Isolatio7i of Persons m Hospitals for the Insane. By Dr. Isaac Ray. 
Notes 071 Refo7'77i Schools. By J. G. Rosengarten. 

1880. Philadelphia Cha7'ity Orga7tization. By Rev. Wm. H. Hodge. 

Public Schools in their Relatio7is to the Community. By James. S. Whitney. 



Reprinted from PENN MONTHLY for May, 1880, 



PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN THEIR RELATIONS TO THE 

COMMUNITY. 



THE fellowship of interest which the older members of a family 
feel in the school life of the younger, from the first day at school 
to the last, crowned, or hoped to be, with honor,- — is a type of that 
which every community should feel in the Public School education of 
its children. That such an interest does exist in this city, to some 
degree, we have evidence in the numerous communications in 
newspapers, from parents who trust that their grievances are those 
of many others, and in editorials which assume large and willing 
audiences. It seems, therefore, that a view of the present condi- 
tion of public education specially in Philadelphia, and generally 
elsewhere, — to show how far it has come and in what direction it 
moves, to reaffirm principles that are still called in question, be- 
cause they are themselves the outgrowth, to the public eye, of the 
system itself, — and before an audience where many minor discus- 
sions may be concentrated, may be worthy of public attention; 
and it certainly is not foreign to the bbjects of this Association. 
For it is to one which, by its title, may be held to have been the 
ancestor of this, that we owe the existence of our present local 
school system. It was '* The Society for the Promotion of Public 
Economy," under the chairmanship of Roberts Vaux, that in 1818 
procured the passage of the act, " to provide," as its title reads, 
" for the education of children at the public expense within the 
City and County of Philadelphia." 

It was a dangerous step, or at least would have been thought 
so then, could its results have been foreseen, when that type of 
the future Commonwealth, the Society of Friends, established in 
1698 a school in Philadelphia, " where all the children and servants 
might be taught, and provision made that the poor be taught 
gratis." The preamble of the last Charter granted this School 
(still in vigorous existence) in 171 1, is as follows: "Whereas the 
prosperity and welfare of any people depend in a great measure, 
upon the good education of youth, and their early introduction in 
principles of true religion and virtue, and qualifying them to serve 
their country and themselves by breeding them in reading, writ- 



ing, and learning of languages and useful arts and sciences, suita- 
ble to their sex, age, and degree ; which cannot be effected, in any 
manner, so well as by erecting Public Schools for the purpose 
aforesaid." Here, in words that suggest not elementary schools 
for the poor, but the generous collegiate foundations of old 
England, is the very basis of a State School system ; and, though 
this was for more than fifty years the only Public School in the 
Province, yet a principle had been stated, and illustrated by its 
existence. It was reaffirmed in the first Constitution of the State, 
that of 1776, in the opening turmoil of the Revolution, and again 
in that of 1790. Both of these require the Legislature " to pro- 
vide by law for the establishment of schools in such manner that 
the poor may be taught," in 1776 ''at low prices," and in 1790 
" gratis." Such laws were passed, found unsatisfactory, and re- 
peatedly changed; the last of this series, ''an act to provide for 
the education of the poor gratis," bearing date 1809. It aston- 
ishes us now, or at least it should astonish us, to observe how long 
a time was required to discover that those words " the poor" were 
the obstacle to all these v/elUmeant efforts. While the rich ob- 
jected to taxation for the expressed benefit of a class, the poor ob- 
jected to the classification which the benefit involved. It was not 
until 1818, after long agitation, and clear showing of the evil of 
class legislation, that the Society for the Promotion of Public 
Economy procured the passage of the act already mentioned. Until 
1834, it applied, however, to Philadelphia only. Its preamble 
reads thus : " Whereas, the general provisions of the existing 
laws towards the establishment of schools throughout the State 
in such manner that the poor may be taught gratis * * ^ 
have not proved to be a public benefit [within the City and 
County of Philadelphia] commensurate with the expense incurred 
by occasion of the same," therefore, &c. 

By this act, which is the foundation of our present city sys- 
tem, all limitations as to the social condition of pupils, and even, 
in effect, the range of their studies, were removed. The control- 
lers were empowered " to provide such suitable books as they may 
deem necessary," and " to establish a model school to qualify 
teachers," — since grown into our Girls' High and Normal School. 
A great step forward had been taken when this law could be 
passed, — a law in which •' the poor " are not reminded of their 



5 

poverty, except in necessary reference to previous legislation. 
And the good effect of the law was so marked, that after extend- 
ing its operation to the whole State in 1834, in 1836 the control- 
lers for Philadelphia were authorized " to establish one Central 
High School for the full education of such pupils of the Public 
Schools as may possess the requisite qualifications;" and it was 
further enacted that " all such provisions (if any) in the ' act of 
1 81 8 and its supplements' as limit the benefits of the said public 
schools to the children of Indigent parents, * * * 

be and the same are hereby repealed." The " if any"' shows that 
the Intention In 1 81 8 was to abolish this odious distinction, which, 
we may hope, received its last mention on our Statute book, in 
the words just quoted ; and the establishment of the High School 
was a guarantee of the good faith of that act. That act, of 1818, 
did not establish a High School, but it brought the grade of edu- 
cation so high by not restricting It to the poor, that pupils who 
had the preparation and the time, (generally from the wealthier, If 
not the wealthiest classes,) looked naturally to a Pllgh School for 
their " full education," so far as any institutions short of a college 
could give it. The stream had risen to the level of its source ; 
the spirit that founded Oxford, and Cambridge, and Winchester, 
and Eton, and a dozen other great endowed schools of P^ngland ; 
which had manifested itself here in the Friends' School already 
mentioned, and the '' College and Academy" (now the University) 
in 1750, — this spirit following the law of its being In the free air 
of a Republic, had expanded to the full measure of its liberal 
nature. 

What, therefore, I v/ish to call attention to, as the first notice- 
able point in this review, is that otcr schools were uns7icccssfnl, or, 
as the preamble already quoted tersely and practically says, 
"their benefits were not commensurate with their expense," 7mtil 
they ivere made schools for all classes, a step zvhich necessitated 
their reaching to the highest grade. Without precise information 
as to other localities, I venture to say that this has been the ex- 
perience everywhere ; and that this point may be considered as 
one of the " fixed facts " in the history of Popular Education.* 

* In 1 81 6 the so-called Poor Schools were attended by i-55th of the whole popu- 
lation. In 1820, after they had become really Public Schools, the attendance had, 
more than doubled, and was 1-226. of the population. In 1830 it remained stationary, 



" Heaven from all creatures hides the book of Fate," and It 
was no doubt well that neither the advocates or the opponents of 
the constitutional clause of 1776 saw its inevitable result; 
else it had not been adopted. But to justify that action, 
we must consider what was at that time the extent of 
an ordinary English education, and how small a portion of the 
community received it, in the private schools of the day. The 
classics and the higher mathematics were seldom studied by those 
not destined for a learned profession or a college course. Natural 
Science and Political Economy, as branches of popular knowledge, 
did not exist ; and a very limited acquaintance with Geography 
and History sufficed for the occasions of most men in those days 
of little travel and few newspapers. As to Drawing, it was 
reckoned, with Embroidery and Deportment, as an ornamental 
accomplishment for the very few young ladies' schools then exist- 
ing. The modern languages were learned for immediate use by 
the few adults who had need of them, and singing, in social even- 
ing schools, by adolescents. There remained, therefore, really but 
the instruction in the " three R's " to be considered when popular 
education was before the Legislature, — Providence thus, according 
to the promise that we shall not be tempted above that we are 
able, making the first step an easy one. These wonderful R's, 
little clouds like a man's hand, — they have showered great bless- 
ings upon us ! Nor is their influence yet spent. The '* promise 
and potency" of much to come is in these essential particles of 
education, to which we must go back again and again that we 
may better go forward. 

But the increased intellectual activity after the Napoleonic 
wars, added to human acquisitions not only new facts, but new 
sciences ; and the elements of these, with a corresponding de- 
velopment of the primitive branches, have added largely to 
the course of studies of the schools. This, in part, made 
necessary the High School department ; but it has brought 

although the population had increased 40 per cent. In 1840, after the classification 
of the lower schools, and the establishment of the High Schools, it had quadrupled 
the figures of 1820 and 1830, and was about i-iith of the population. Since then it 
has grown steadily in numbers and proportion, being in 1871 i-8th of the population. 
In i8i6, with 2,000 pupils, the cost was $£1.50 each. In 1871, with 87,428, pupils, 
and a greatly extended course of study, it had grown but to $15. 67 per pupil; and in 
view of the changed value of money, the increase is less than it appears to be. 



about also a most comprehensive classification and grading of all 
departments. 

All this has not been the work of one, but of many years, and 
has taxed the patient thought of many men and women who 
would have been famous had they not been simply teachers. The 
first step in this path in this city was the division into Primary, 
Secondary and Grammar Departments, in 1837; the next, the es- 
tablishment of the Senior classes, in 1867, as intermediate between 
the Grammar and the High Schools; the last, the revision of 
1877, i" connection with the present course of study then adopted. 
This makes for each of the three lower departments four grades, 
and for the Senior, two ; in all, without the High Schools, four- 
teen grades, numbered continuously from the lowest, and requiring 
eight years for their completion. 

I introduce this statement here in connection with what I have 
said as to the Public Schools having become schools for all. But 
I desire to call special attention to it, in answer to a complaint that 
has been heard of late, and which seems very much like the old 
opposition to State education, revived under a new form. Within 
the last seven years, the burden of taxation, under a financial dis- 
tress unequalled during the generation which has seen the devel- 
opment of our school system, has drawn public attention to every 
means of relief. Some of the larger taxpayers, suffering less from 
the burden, yet more sensible of it than the poor, complain that 
our schools are too expensive ; that they go too far ; that they 
teach sciences and ornamental branches, never contemplated by 
their founders. Those among the complainants who pride them- 
selves on owing everything to ancestry, urge that the masses, who 
are, of course, to be working people, need a plain, ** practical " 
education only. Those who pride themselves on owing nothing to 
ancestry say that if any have talents fitting them for a higher 
walk, they will reach it without education, '' as we did." 

But these views, however much they claim to be based on those 
of the Fathers, are of modern origin. They are due to a more 
rapid growth of wealth than wisdom, and the rise of a so-called 
aristocracy, based on wealth. This aristocracy has travelled, if it 
has thought it worth while to do so ; it has been complacently 
and publicly unconscious, or painfully and secretly sensible, of its 
inferiority to its European prototype, refined by generations of 



ease and culture, and for the present, at least, still an essential 
part of the political system. It has seen in foreign countries, if it 
has cared to look, public education maintained by the State, not 
to make the people more fit to govern, but more easily governed ; 
and it brings home the language of those countries when Educa- 
tion is the topic, as when it speaks of Society and Art. The effect 
is seen in the freedom with which demagogues disparage the 
higher education, and cut down salaries of teachers. It will be 
felt disastrously when such work shall have so lowered the 
standard of our schools that they shall again be known as Pauper 
Schools, and a coming generation shall be taught, as a primary 
lesson, that Public Schools are for the Poor only. 

As already said, the answer to these objections is to be found in the 
grading and classification that have been mentioned. A very short 
study of the statistics of this feature of our local system will illus- 
trate this. At the close of 1878, which was by no means an ex- 
ceptional year, of our 103,997 pupils, 52,422, or one-half of the 
whole, were in the Primary Department, and studying, therefore, 
Spelling, Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, as far as multiplication 
with four figures, and long division by one figure, Drawing in 
straight and curved lines, such as are the basis of all mechanical 
and ornamental design. Object Lessons, or very " practical " oral 
instruction in weights, measures, money, form, color, local geog- 
raphy, general elementary useful knowledge ; and Music in simple 
songs. 

Going a little further, we find that 27,022 pupils, being a little 
over one-fourth cf the whole, were in the Secondary Department, 
where the same studies are reviewed and carried further, — Lan- 
guage into the beginning of Grammar ; Arithmetic into common 
fractions ; Drawing, into natural forms (leaves and flowers), and 
their analysis into typical forms ; Object Lessons including names 
of trees, and plants in this vicinity, with some knowledge of their 
habits and uses — the qualities and uses of various familiar materials 
— and information as to different occupations or trades. Vocal 
music is continued with two-part songs, and the Geography of 
North America is added. 

We have now, before reaching the Grammar Department, origi- 
nally the highest grade, already accounted for 79,444, out of the 103,- 
997 pupils — that is to say, with those pursuing Primary and Sec- 



ondary studies, of the 7,418 in consolidated or unclassified schools, 
and the 300 in the Practice classes of the Normal School, about 
four-fifths of the whole. Certainly not much that is unpractical is 
taught to this point. 

In the Grammar Department proper, there were 15,443, and 
probably 5,000 more in the consolidated schools. From this should 
be deducted the senior classes — say 1,800 — making the total num- 
ber pursuing the studies of this grade, say 18,000, or about one- 
sixth of the whole. These 1 8,000 are divided among 64 schools, 
in a territory of 143 square miles, and certainly cannot form any- 
where a very dangerous body of over-educated youth. Let us see 
what they study. Language lessons go into the beginning of Syn- 
tax ; Arithmetic to percentage and square root, measurement of 
rectangular surfaces and solids ; Geography becomes universal, and 
that of the United States is studied in connection with their history. 
Drawing comprises freehand perspective without shading, and con- 
ventional ornament. Music teaches the formation of different 
scales, with three-part exercises and songs ; and Object Lessons 
are given on the most general classification of animals and plants, 
farther details of their economic uses, the laws of heat and cold, 
ventilation, respiration, etc. 

About 1,800 pupils, as already stated, are in the Senior grades, 
where the High School course really begins, and, for most of the 
students, ends. Here Grammar is finished ; Geometry, Mensura- 
tion and Algebra are begun , Geography becomes Physical, instead 
of Political ; and History, in the form of reading lessons, is that of 
the United States, with those of England, France, and Spain (the 
three most nearly connected with ours), and of the most important 
nations of antiquity. Drawing is both freehand and instrumental, 
for constructive and decorative purposes ; Vocal Music, now mainly, 
of course, for the girls, goes into higher detail ; and the Object 
Lessons, by charts and lectures, are on elementary Natural Philoso- 
phy, Physiology and the laws of health. The study of the Consti- 
tution of the United States is added, with oral instruction on our 
city government. 

In all the departments, exercises conducive to physical devel- 
opment and discipline, are required to be taught ; and the oral in- 
struction, in addition to what has been mentioned, is directed to 
the" habits and conduct", becoming, in the hands of a competent 
teacher, a far-reaching moral agency. 



ro 

Concluding our analysis with the two High Schools (Boys' and 
Girls') we find that they contained in all, at the close of 1878, 1,392 
pupils, making, with the 1,800 in the Senior classes, about one- 
thirty-third of the whole number. The studies of the Boys' High 
School in the English Language and Literature, Mathematics, 
Latin, Mental Science, History and Political Economy, and Natural 
Science, are nearly if not quite the same as in the Department of 
Arts at the University of Pennsylvania, while they include Mechan- 
ical Drawing, which the latter does not, and do not include Greek 
and French, which the latter does. 

The studies of the Girls' High School have been adapted chiefly 
to the requirements of those who are to become teachers in the 
lower schools, and therefore omit, among others, Latin, German, 
Political Science, and some branches of Mathematics. As the pre- 
paration for teaching, however, has recently been made a special 
course, it will not probably be long before that for general pupils 
will be as liberal as the '' full education " of women demands. 

It will be seen, then, that in the year 1878 there were but -^ 
of the Public Scholars enjoying High School instruction, if we in- 
clude the Senior classes of the Grammar Schools ; without them, 
but J-g- ; that but \ are in the other grammar grades, and the re- 
mainder, nearly ^, are in the lowest grades, where are taught 
Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, and American Geography, and 
nothing else but the very practical subjects, involving no text- 
books, of Drawing, Singing, Physical Exercises and Good Behavior. 
The records of at least the last eight years show very slight varia- 
tion in these proportions, which may be taken, therefore, as those 
of the children in the different grades of our Public Schools at any 
one time. It does not seem, then, that the masses of our children 
are being taught too much, or that our municipal legislators have 
reason to fear that their future constituents are outgrowing them 
in learning. The latter fact is to be regretted, but, as it is a fact, it 
should be quoted on the right side. That the 104,000 public 
school children represent this future constituency very largely will 
be evident when we remember that the total number of children 
of school age in this city is about 150,000, exclusive of those at 
work, and that the course and methods of the Public Schools 
direct very much those of all others. 

As to the " undue expensiveness " of all this, I am sorry to say 



II 

that the city of Philadelphia pays only about ;^I5 per annum for 
the instruction of each of its public scholars. This includes not 
only teachers' salaries, but books, fuel, furniture, repairs and in- 
surance ; in fact, everything except new buildings. The Boys' 
High School, an institution whose use many fail to see, notwith- 
standing its collegiate powers, since it " does not even make 
teachers," costs the enormous sum of $'j^ per annum — less than 
half the cost of a University year — for each of its 600 pupils. 
This, however, is assessed upon a capital of ;^ 200,000,000, and has 
given to the community possessing that capital, during the last 
forty years, hundreds of its leading and most useful men, who for 
want of that seventy-five dollars yearly would have had no higher 
preparation for life than the Grammar School course. 

There also are facts to be regretted : it is possible that if we 
gave more to our schools, we should receive more from them, and 
criticism find fewer occasions. 

A French writer has compared a well-arranged plan of public 
education " to a railway system, with its main line, stations, 
junctions and branch lines. * * * Just as passengers on a rail- 
way get out at the different stations, so the children, who, from 
pecuniary necessity or social position, are compelled to earn their 
livelihood at an earlier age, leave school at any point of this 
course, '^ * -^ all, according to the amount of knowledge they 
have acquired, able to take their place in the social stratification." 
As it is the duty and interest of railway managers to give facilities 
for all classes of passengers, so it is the duty and interest of the 
State to provide for all who travel the road to learning, leaving to 
the operation of natural laws, in both cases, the fixing of the pro- 
portion of way and through fares. The necessities of a vast 
manufacturing population prevent the greater part of the pupils 
from reaching the Grammar department ; and the unique con- 
struction of our city, which brings the poorest classes into close 
neighborhood with the wealthier, has the effect to restrict the 
children of the latter very largely to the Grammar Department 
and the High Schools, particularly the Boys'. The objection 
sometimes made, that the whole course of study contemplates, 
nevertheless, the entrance of each Primary pupil into a High 
School, will be met by what has been and what will be said. 
Certainly, to return to our illustration, our road, no matter with 
how many stations, must have a terminus also. 



12 

But there is a real danger in the extension of the course of 
studies, — a danger somewhat opposite to that which our friends 
(of whom we have just spoken) have feared, and yet, perhaps, the 
one that they should have felt. It is not that our pupils may be 
learning too much, but that they may be educated too little. 
Learning, as the acquiring of information, is one thing; Educa- 
tion, the development of the human forces, is another. I do not 
say that we are at present committing this error; but there 
always has been, and will be, a tendency to it, that must be care- 
fully watched and checked. Public schools owe their origin to a 
desire to open to the illiterate that field of knowledge whose gate 
is the art of reading. It was natural, therefore, that the next 
step should be the im.parting of knowledge. And yet the mere 
giving of knowledge, for its own sake, or for its commercial uses, 
I take to be not at all the function of State schools, or, indeed, of 
any but special schools. This audience will not misunderstand 
me, but may even wonder that I should call attention to this as 
the other prominent point in a public school system, besides its 
comprehensiveness, namely, that State education innst be es^ 
seiitially a training, 7tot essentially an informing process. But 
a beacon, though centuries old, is useless the moment a fog 
hides it, and you will allow me, therefore, a few words on this 
point of which we often lose sight. 

For the principle I have mentioned, applied to education gener- 
ally, is older than our Teachers' Institutes, older than Pestalozzi, 
older than Comenius. Displayed first probably by the Greeks, 
what the leaders in teaching have since done, has been to recall, 
from time to time, by its light, the course of their comrades as they 
have strayed from the true p?.th into the bogs of pedantic rote, or 
the thickets of universal knowledge. The human being is always 
the same, and what must always be done for him is, to bring out 
his powers by the proper use of his accidental circumstances. All 
knowledge is but a means ; all life but a process of education ; and 
that fraction of each that belongs to the school time of youth, is 
best used when it follows this course. It is true that so far as the 
education of the mmd is concerned, the acquisition of knowledge 
is the first and almost the last step, but after all, it is no more the 
e7td tha.n the partaking of food is the end of eating, though this be a 
performance indispensable first, last, and always, toourgrowth and 
maintenance. " For life," in all its forms, " is more than meat." 



13 

Among barbarous peoples, the development of the physical 
powers is the most important part of education. As civilization 
increases, the intellectual faculties require and receive more atten- 
tion, and where civilization is, like ours, based on Christianity, the 
duty of educating the moral faculties is recognized. Each of these 
should be an addition, not a substitution. The highest civilization 
should produce men of physical beauty equal to the classic models, 
of strength, endurance, and acuteness of sense of the nomad or 
hunter ; of the highest degree of mental perception, reten- 
tion, and analysis, and with spiritual graces that, so far at least, have 
been found inseparable from Christianity. All this seems visionary, 
but I am pointing forward to a goal, not to the roadside we are 
passing ; and if we wish to know our way, we must ask where it 
leads. 

So the most important question for us, now and always, is. Is 
our course of public education well designed theoretically, to bring 
on their way to this highest plane, in the few steps of one 
generation, the people of this city? I think it is. Our very 
general review has shown that while more time is, properly, 
occupied with the mental training, yet the physical and moral are 
not neglected. Much of the first involves the second. The use of 
charts, and objects, to teach color and form, the study of drawing 
and singing, of geography by map drawing, the regulated use of 
physical exercises, in addition to the usual recess, all are 
calculated to aid in the development of the organs of the 
senses, and the general bodily vigor. And since, historically and 
actually, the highest form of religion is based on manhood, certainly 
the moral instruction required in our schools, is, in connection with 
the mental and bodily, at least a preparative for something higher. 

As to a more detailed examination of the course, this is not the 
place, even were there time, for it. Let me only say, as to its mental 
department, that as the acquiring of information is a means to the 
training of the mind, so it was justly thought that a scheme of 
study which followed the most natural order of learning should 
be the best. Naturalness is followed in grouping the 
studies under their generic names, and taking them up in proper 
order ; and the seven branches, mathematics, writing, drawing, 
music, natural science, history — which might be again condensed 
into the three primitive orders of Pestalozzi, speech, form, number, 



14 

(the " three R.'s " again) — comprehend all that man can know, un- 
der titles that are carried through all the grades. Thoroughness 
in elementary principles, rather than the covering of large fields 
thinly, has been kept in view, and, therefore, children are kept 
longer in the early stages of language and number than formerly. 
The study of language is made more prominent, and that of num- 
ber less, than formerly in the Primary Department. The lessons 
are divided among the different grades more minutely, and without 
reference to any special text-book. The instruction in drawing is 
made obligatory, at least so far as the requirement of examinations 
can make it so. Political geography and history are taught to- 
gether, as they should always be, and, in fact, the whole course 
shows a more scientific structure, as a training system, than its 
predecessor. This may be said without disparagement of the labors 
of those who prepared that course, for some of them have been the 
most active in the arrangement or introduction of the present. 
And if long experience and observation of that course, if acknowl- 
edged skill as teachers, if months of patient, unpaid labor, done 
in hours which the workman might justly claim as his own, if care- 
ful study and readiness to avail of the experience of other cities ; 
if all these are not a guarantee that the Committee of Principals to 
whom this city owes her present course of study, have made the 
best one possible, they at least guarantee the probability that no 
better could have been made, and that they and those they repre- 
sent are ready to amend whatever use may prove defective. 

The direction in which improvements will be made hereafter, 
will, I think, be in the apportionment of time among the different 
branches according to their relative value. Thus it may be a 
question whether too much detail be not allowed in Geography 
and History, at the expense of studies which have a greater value 
in training viz : Literature, Mathematics, and form in some of its 
varieties. The man of one book is famous as a man of power. 
While the practice of a single manual art dwarfs the mind, study 
of a single branch comprehending these subjects expands it. Intro- 
ductory or in addition to drawing, modeling might be practiced in the 
lower schools, and the representation of tools and appliances of 
the arts made a part of the drawing lessons of the higher. 

The Boys' High School would doubtless give a more valuable 
degree, if its studies were so far elective that pupils could carry 



15 

either a general or a scientific course to a full collegiate standard ; 
or if it should confine itself entirely to one or the other. 

It is a failure to note the distinction between training and 
informing, which gives rise to much of the objection to the 
higher grades of public education. If the business of the 
schools, be to give information, one may well feel alarmed, 
lest, in an age where the field of knowledge is continually 
widening, that there will be no Hmit to the curriculum ; and de- 
cide it the safest course to stop all instruction but the most ele- 
mentary. But if our educators keep this point in view, that the 
State, having no right to legislate for special classes, ought not to 
make encyclopedists any more than lawyers, physicians, account- 
ants, telegraphers, machinists, farmers, etc., but that she ought 
to make men, they will know their path and its end, and will 
soon find themselves unmolested in it. 

For men are what the State always needs, while the necessity 
for artisans of any type or degree changes with the market. In a 
Commonwealth, above all, where the pupils '' are the State," not 
its subjects, should the higher education, which makes the leaders 
among men, be easily accessible, because it raises the standard of 
general intelligence. The highest mountains rise from elevated 
regions, and the leading minds of the Nation come now from those 
parts of our country where State education is most thorough and 
general. At the risk of being offensive, I call . attention to this : 
the two conditions are inseparable, and that the gradation 
hitherto seems to be downward from the higher parallels of lati- 
tude. In England the class from which the governing minds 
arise is well educated. Here that class should be co-extensive 
with the country. That all cannot reach the highest grades of 
training, is a reason why every opportunity should be given to 
those who can. It is the way of nature that the rising sun does 
not fill the landscape with light till after he has illuminated the 
highest peaks. 

Much has been said lately of the necessity of industrial train- 
ing in our Public Schools. So far as this means a preparation for 
an industrious, useful life, it is exactly what has been maintained 
in the preceding pages. But those who seriously propose to in- 
troduce special manual employments, which, by a restriction in 
language, seems to be all that come under the head of industry, 



t6 

now-a-days, must give the subject very careful consideration.* 
I have suggested how much is to be done for every child besides 
teaching it a trade ; and if it be well done, in those first years 
when it ought not to be confined to labor, the learning of trades, 
under their present and prospective division into specialties, and 
in technical schools which are replacing apprenticeship, becomes 
an easy matter. Only let our course of study keep in view such 
a balance between its departments, — such an equal opening of the 
doors to each of the three directions of human effort, — towards 
facility in language, towards aptness in mathematical combinations, 
towards readiness in distinguishing form, that each pupil, instead 
of being fitted for nothing, with a consequent leaning towards a 
clerkship or a cheap literary occupation, will find the path in 
which he or she can work best, and the State at least need not 
trouble itself about him or her thereafter. 

What now has risen up before us in this review ? Not an elee- 
mosynary system, offspring of benevolence and self-interest, for the 
protection of the rich by the least possible aiding of the poor ; not 
a meagre course of elementary learning, a mere gate to let unbred 
animals into common, forest, or garden at their own will ; but a 
thoughtfully planned course of training, physical, mental, and 
moral, reaching from the Kindergarten to the University, and af- 
fecting the children of the day laborer and the capitalist — in its 
night schools, even the laborer himself. It is not, we admit, the 
system established by the fathers ; we are glad — and they would 
be — that it is not. Great, indeed, were the foresight, or small the 

'"To look at this question as a practical one, — out of about nine hundred distinct 
occupations in the Philadelphia City Business Directory for 1880, about one hundred 
separate manual arts or trades may be distinguished. To give an elementary know- 
ledge of each of these, an immense expense (besides time) is required in buildings, 
materials, tools, and instructors, which must be increased with the progress of the 
arts, changed with the changing demand, or allowed to become vv'orthless or obselete. 
It will be impossible to teach each to every pupil, and discrimination, at so early an 
age, must be made quite in the dark. What then, can be done for " industrial" edu- 
cation, more than to try to develop such mental aptness and manual dexterity as will 
make easy the learning of the most suitable trade when necessary? This will not ex- 
clude all useful work from schools, any more than the same rule in other studies ex- 
cludes all useful learning. It only restricts the teaching to such employments, 
whether prospectively remunerative in themselves or not, as are best for these train- 
ing purposes. Not many are required ; drawing and modeling have been already 
mentioned, and plain sewing doubtless might be added. 



17 

advance, of a nation if such could be the case. We are instru- 
ments only, even in our plans, of a greater planner, and no more 
conscious of the final result, than is the acorn of the oak. The 
Nation that would enter upon a Public School System, must 

" Drink deep, or taste not that Pierian spring." 

Do we realize the growing influence of this institution, 
already affecting the whole Nation, and second in power to 
the Church only ? Those who have always enjoyed its ben- 
efits regard it as a matter of course, like the breath they draw ; 
but those who have not been its friends, see more distinctly its 
power and promise. The most prominent newspaper of one of the 
most influential religious bodies, a body which largely favors its 
separate schools, says recently, referring to the connection of pub- 
lic libraries with the schools, ''We have entered, in our school 
system, upon the organization of modern society ; we cannot stop 
half-way." 

That we do not thus fail depends upon an agency of which no 
mention has yet been made. That agency is the teacher. I have 
thought that a consideration of the methods and importance of 
the work would better prepare us to speak of the workwoman or 
workman ; and I hope in so doing I have made it necessary to say very 
little. Do we not need for this work, growing more and more in- 
dependent of text-books and routine, the finest qualities of mind 
and heart ? We have teachers possessing these, but if they can- 
not be retained, if more cannot be had, our well planned course is 
a dead form with no spirit of life : a rigid method with no adapta- 
bility to its subjects. And if they cannot be had for other consid- 
erations, we must, with the present pecuniary rewards, wait long 
for them. 

As the work rests upon the teacher, so the teacher rests upon 
those who qualify and appoint her, who prescribe her duties, who 
select books, who plan and erect buildings. These again, so far as 
money is needed, rest upon the legislators, and these upon the peo- 
ple. A zealous discrimination in the voter, a wise liberality in the 
councilman, a just and strong supervision in controllers and direc- 
tors, are the most urgent needs of this whole animated structure. 

If the people are not sensible enough of their responsibilities in 
this regard, cannot they become so through the agency by which 



other political benefits have been realized — through an organiza- 
tion, working outside of state and civic bodies, an observing, sug- 
gesting, counseling, strengthening, force ? Perhaps the mission of 
the Society for the Promotion of Public Economy is not yet ended, 
— that what may be called its '* scattered members," in this Asso- 
ciation and the new Charity Organization, may be revivified un- 
der the old name, a more comprehensive one than either of the 
others, and the Society renew its youth in its labors in this direc- 
tion. Here is a field for those who would serve the body politic, 
yet fear to be " in politics." They would find true the converse of 
the ancient saying ; and that they who would serve among men 
shall be accounted great. 



PRESS OF EDWARD STERN & CO., 
125 & 127 NORTH SEVENTH STREET, PHILA. 



B 2i4 79 






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